Await .NET 4.5

I have been stuck on the .NET 2.0 bandwagon for the longest time.

During the development in the past few years, I have watched Microsoft giving birth to .NET 3.5 and .NET 4.0, the features came out of them such as LINQ, LINQ to SQL, Entity Framework, Enterprise Library, MVC and others. I read them, I had an idea they existed, but because I was focusing on improving the product I'm making, other than MVC framework, I simply haven't had much time to dive into the details from most of them, overtime, I got seriously behind the curve.

Lately, my interests have been largely focused on asynchronous programming in.NET as I'm concerned of the performances that the traditional synchronous operations have on the servers. While asynchronous programming has no direct impact to the end users per say, however, it is absolutely vital to end programmers such like me to leverage it, get the best values out of the CPU / CLR Threadpool and as a result, maximizing the full capabilities of the hardware and such delivery a better product to the end users. I'm glad .NET 4.5 took an emphasis in this area.

In addition, real time live updates in the past has been nothing short of difficult. The only solutions you had were to ajax poll on a regular interval or implement your own comet solutions which involves long persisted connections with asynchronous programming implemented on the server side. This effort itself is not for the faint of heart and I'm glad that it too has been addressed in the upcoming .NET 4.5 with the WebSocket namespace.

Overall, I think I will finally take the leap and jump off the .NET 2.0 / Web Form bandwagon. .NET 4.5 still have awhile before it can be released, meanwhile, migrate to .NET 4.0 is my top concern. Once we are upgraded to .NET 4.0, switching to .NET 4.5 will have a less impact as oppose to directly switching from .NET 2.0 to .NET 4.5

One thing though, I'm somewhat disappointed to learn that the Entity Framework still does not support the asynchronous model. To fully leverage the CLR Threadpool, Microsoft seriously need to put some energy into this area and gives us a full stack we can really use.

Creator of Jumptree Project Management - A web based ASP.NET 2.0 project management software focused around the idea of milestone deliverables and clients interactions. Unlike basecamp or other traditional bug trackers, you can effectively manage your conversations with clients and materialize them into concrete tasks.